


Because You're Mine

by katsumeragi



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Blood, Kidnapping, M/M, Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Thriller
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 21:24:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5885713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katsumeragi/pseuds/katsumeragi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gokudera has gone missing, and a mysterious kidnapper wants to make sure Yamamoto is the only one on his trail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because You're Mine

**Author's Note:**

> http://imagineyourotp.tumblr.com/post/61353976076/tw-blood
> 
> I love the idea of this challenge but I am doing some modifications to make it not as short of an experience.
> 
> Also, David Fincher movie marathons have the potential to give you some great, terrible, ideas.

Maybe he shouldn’t skip varsity practice, if it’s only the fourth week. Maybe he could enlist Bianchi to feed him some lightly poisoned soba to get him sick enough to go home for the day, and he could take time to do some...searching. Maybe Gokudera thought he offended Tsuna in some way and was holed up in some run-down hotel in a few cities over. He should check anywhere they fought in the past. 

“Yamamoto,”

He should make some calls to someone in Italy; maybe Squalo was withholding something and maybe he was in the mood to be helpful for a change. He could start off the conversation with “Hey, Squalo, buddy, as long as you don’t go for the eyes again want to beat me up for information?”

“Err, Yamamoto,”

This might have been his fault in the first place. He should have gone after him the first chance he realized no one had heard from him. Gokudera wasn’t the kind of person to be easily found. He either didn’t want to be, or someone had to be really, really good to hide him. Who was he kidding, he knew exactly why he’d cut contact but it wasn’t something he could easily explain.

“Yamamoto!”

He snapped back from his plans and threw one of his chopsticks across the table, almost hitting Tsuna who barely ducked in time. He saw as Tsuna, Ryohei, Kyoko and Haru stared at him with a lot of concern. Well, they had been doing that for the past six days as Gokudera had gone missing; he went the kind of missing that Tsuna didn’t even know about, who knew his every move even if he didn’t want to. After breaking into his apartment, and by “breaking into” Yamamoto meant the huge mistake of asking Ryohei to punch the front door out of existence, the apartment wasn’t in a state of distress. The only strange thing was piled up mail and spoiling milk in the fridge.

“Look, Yamamoto,” Tsuna clumsily began, “we know it’s taking a toll on everyone that we still don’t know where Gokudera went but I’m doing everything I can to try and find him.” Ah, that again. Maybe he couldn’t notice them in his own reflection but to everyone else the bags under his eyes were the level of the undead. He hasn’t combed his hair in a while. He was probably carrying around the stench of baseball practice two days ago. “I’ve asked the extended family, CEDEF...we just need to be patient.”

Patient. Right.

“Maybe we should have a small get-together at Tsuna’s house tonight!” suggested Kyoko. “Haru and I could try out a new recipe and while we’re eating we can think of some ways to make the search more efficient!” Everyone clamored in agreement with her while Yamamoto ambivalently agreed. Haru chirped about some recipe in Dancyu she saw recently. Ryohei was going to make sure he got off of boxing practice on time for tonight. That was just great.

As happy as he was with Gokudera he certainly inherited some of his cynicism, or maybe it was just Tsuna’s mafia business getting more serious that brought it out in him. He supposed as someone willing to throw himself off a building for baseball, he’s always had it.

[][][][]

Yamamoto found himself fumbling with his keys to get into the back door of Takesushi. He left early, because if he wasn’t making his friends feel uncomfortable it felt excruciatingly painful to sit in Tsuna’s dining room and wear his normal stupid face while everyone thought a search party would do a lot of good. He just needed some time alone.

Maybe he did need to pull himself together a little. He should brush his pearly whites for that “famous smile” everyone said he had, although he couldn’t find it lately. He should shower, shave, try to get sleep no matter how much his inner fears and demons wanted to peel his eyelids open all night. He took a towel from an ever-growing pile of laundry and walked down the hall to the bathroom.

What a disaster he was, Yamamoto thought while looking at his reflection in the mirror. 

He could have sworn he had only skipped one day brushing his teeth, especially since he treasured the goofy baseball-printed toothbrush Gokudera got him as a gag gift. Maybe he was doing a lot worse than he thought. His father probably wouldn’t notice if he just used his things for a quick brush but hey, he needed the excuse to panic more. He went back to his room to grab a few things before heading out to Gokudera’s again.

To his surprise the door was reattached but the window was locked not that anyone else knew about that. He opened them often, since his small apartment could get rather stuffy, and because culinary failure was genetic and most of his food ended up in the trash if it wasn’t incinerated. Maybe Ryohei or Tsuna locked it after their investigation?

But if that was the case, why was the door unlocked?

Hoping to open the door and realize the past few days were a hallucination, he tore it open to see everything was the same, from the stack of Gokudera’s convoluted sci-fi books near the couch he found on the side of the street and the stacks of instant noodles that covered his kitchen counter.

Something new was a small, folded piece of paper that was highlighted by a small ray of moonlight. It was folded into neat thirds, on very cheery stationery, with small animals in a marching band. The handwriting was more like a psychopath’s.

I’ve got him.  
Go to the old textile factory tomorrow night.  
Come alone.  
Comply or else.

After a panicked phone call Tsuna was now pacing back and forth in the small space between Gokudera’s kitchen and the rest of his apartment.“I can’t think of someone who would be trying to get back at us. We’re pretty likable as far as mafia families go at the moment. I think? Oh god what if the Varia has done something and I can’t reprimand them from here? Oh god, oh god, what do we do?”

“I don’t know if we really did anything or if someone is doing this just for the hell of it. Either way, whoever it is, they’re dead.”

“Do we even negotiate with someone like this or do I call Reborn for advice?”

“We’ll do whatever it takes. I’ve got Gokudera and baseball and I can’t sleep next to baseball to make me stop having nightmares.” 

“Wait, huh?”

Wait. They talked about this. He could have sworn aside from the other night, this was something they were moving towards doing. Because it’s Tsuna, out of all people.

“Did...did he never tell you we were…”

Tsuna still wore confusion on his face. 

He wasn’t sure if he should be hurt or not by Gokudera hiding their relationship but here he was still taking a plastic cup left on his kitchen counter and throwing it hard enough at the wall to shatter. Tsuna yelped and gave him his trademark “what the hell” eyes.

Maybe he was overreacting. Gokudera was the one who liked to keep so buttoned-down and professional, always striving to be the best right hand man, even if that meant sometimes forcing Yamamoto into waiting on him like a lovesick puppy for just about anything. It drove him mad but he wouldn’t end it for the world.

“We...I don’t know if I’d call it a real relationship but we have something. We usually take turns by the week on who will spend the night where. I knew he didn’t want the other guardians to know since it’d be a little annoying but you, you’re a different story.”

Tsuna looked down at his shuffling feet. “Gee, you know, Haru and Kyoko used to make jokes about that sort of thing once you stopped arguing as much, well,err, I guess he did most of the arguing.”

Yamamoto walked to the small crater in the wall to pick up the plastic shards. So long Gokudera’s security deposit. “No, it’s fine, it’s just that-”

“He wanted to keep it a secret because he thought I’d be offended or something?” Yamamoto nodded. Tsuna rubbed his forehead with helplessness. “Well, you know, that’s just kind of the person he is I guess. He really does take all this mafia stuff more seriously than I do, but at least I’ve gotten a little better. Plus” He gave Yamamoto a comforting smile “You seem a lot more like yourself lately. I guess he really takes the edge off.”

He did, he supposed. “So what do you think I should do?”

“Out of all the weird things we’ve had to deal with...hrm. I don’t really know what I’d do about a kidnapping. We could ask Reborn maybe. What does your gut tell you?”

“Well,” “My gut tells me that I just want him home as soon as possible, but we should be careful. We should have a little backup.”

“You have a good gut, you know that?”

[][][][]

Good gut be damned, it was somehow empty.

Yamamoto reached blindly in the dark to unlock the back door near the restaurant’s trash cans while stealthily cupping the bells on the inside handle. Sure, his father was pretty in-tune with what he was doing with his spare time besides baseball, but he had to at least pretend to be a well-adjusted individual and at the absolute least, not a truant whoa been out all night the past few days. 

After quietly clicking the door back in its frame he opened the fridge to grab milk. He swigged it down like a salaryman chugging sake on a rough night. Maybe one of his teammates found out about their relationship and decided to play a cruel trick on him. 

Maybe it was stupid of him to have Tsuna hiding a few dozen meters away from the dilapidated building, since this unseen enemy could have had eyes anywhere. He wasn’t sure if he should fear the consequences of that.  
Yamamoto carefully tread up the stairs to his bedroom where he could try to escape the evening’s events with dreamless sleep. Upon turning the handle and stifling the small creaks the door made, he noticed there was a small piece of paper at the foot of his bed.

Strange. The windows were closed and his father wouldn’t have let a stranger past the restaurant. 

Warily he stepped closer to the note at the foot of his bed, and noticed there was a small bag underneath it, made of green velvet, the same sort of verdant color that matched Gokudera’s eyes. He unfolded the note with the same inappropriately cheery paper with an uneasy stomach. Something didn’t feel right.

Every time you don’t comply, he gets one less.  
Let’s try this again.  
Come as soon as you can.  
Come ALONE.

With trembling hands he picked up the pouch. It was light; it held only one cylindrical object inside that was soft and delicate. Yamamoto inhaled its scent and the taste of blood flooded his mouth. He didn’t want to open it. He already knew what it was, cryptic message be damned. His brain yelled at him to just throw the drawstring in the furthest back part of the freezer and run to the factory building but he pulled at the strings and emptied into his hand Gokudera’s pinky finger doused in blood.

He places it back on his bed before running to the bathroom to hurl up meals he hasn’t eaten. Even in the dim light he just knows it’s his, from the pale shade of skin to the kempt fingernail. What the hell would prompt someone to do that to him, he thought. Was their subsect of mafia one-on-one grandstand battles really just child’s play and this was the real mafia Reborn warned of all these years? 

Why couldn’t he just have been around to protect Gokudera before it was too late?

He knew the answer to this question as he sat in remorse after emptying out his insides. He wiped the corner of his mouth and propped himself back up for a drink of water. He cupped his hands underneath the faucet; most of the water didn’t make it into his mouth with how badly he was trembling. 

Whoever this psychopath was, was alarmingly proactive.

And he was determined, once he quit shaking, to go back there and end this tonight.


End file.
